Nexus vs CAT6500

[mazheralam]

Hello ,

Our Company is planning to refresh Cisco infrastructure . The infrastructure consists of 6500 with EoL SUP and  edge 3750 and completely routed network. I am confused with the future selection in terms of Nexus and  6500 as we are planning for coming  7 to 10 years.

Currently we are running

- OSPF for edge devices

- L2 for two sites connectivity with fiber however planning to migrate towards MPLS.

- There is no service module in 6500 as we use separate appliances like firewall, wireless etc.

- All the servers will be virtualized in couple of months ( Around 200 physical server  to 20 max virtualized server )

Keeping the current infrastructure in mind, how nexus can help in increasing the productivity, scalibility and lowering the cost ???

[vmiller]

Here is a link on some details to compare:

http://www.netcraftsmen.net/resources/technical-articles/134-feature-comparison-of-the-nexus-7000-and-catalyst-6500-series-switches.html

My own take is that the nexus is the evolution of the 6500. Where the 6500 had all sorts of modules you could install, the nexus is pretty much

data center only. You won't be able to do MPLS. But, your capacity for 10G is pretty good.

[mazheralam]

thanks vmiller. I have seen couple of links and people have different opinion in this. I am not too much concern about service modules but obviously would like to know in detail what virtualization , power and scalibility features are there and how my company can get benefit using those features..

Here are some threads....

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1579230

http://www.howfunky.com/2009/12/so-what-advatages-are-there-to-having.html

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2029151

https://ciscosupport.hosted.jivesoftware.com/thread/2031473?decorator=print&displayFullThread=true

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/message/98823

Nexus roadmap

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9402/solution_overview_c22-516393_ps9902_Product_Solution_Overview.html

[Leo Laohoo]

VSS-Sup2T coming to the nearest 6500 before 3rd quarter of 2011.

[hobbe]

In short

The nexus 5000 will give you the advantage to have 10Gig links and very good speed.

if your SAN uses FCoE then you will have a good switch for that too. if not then its just a bonus to have the ability to use that.

The 10gig links will give you the ability to have a good backup (we have no information about your backups but as a general rule its never bad to have good bandwith for them) and god speed to the 10-20 or so, virtual servers connected to each of the physical machines and if needed you can have a trunk added to that aswell, and if needed, encryption for lines going to other datacenters.

I do not know your routing environment so its hard to say anything about that.

Good luck

HTH

[mazheralam]

Thanks.. If move to Nexus only for 10g connection to servers then I believe 6500 also support 10g card. For SAN we have aggregated gig connection so its not any issue though. internally eigrp and ospf are running. Is there any advantage regarding power, management or something else ????

[vmiller]

This is all personal opinion at this point. I have worked with the 6500 for years and have no

gripes. But, If I was looking to grow my capacity in the data center, I would go Nx versus the 65.

I do like the management VRF concept, and the code train evolved out of the SAN world. I haven't done

a detailed study of the power differences, etc. To me it is the future of switching platforms as far as cisco

goes.

[hobbe]

No I did not just mean that you are just getting a nexus for the 10Gig connections.

The 5000 is a datacenter switch and as such very very fast. I do not only mean in the sense of 10gig, 10 Gig is 10 Gig either way you look at it, but the speed as the paket transfers the unit.

When you have a SAN and my guess is that you will have one since you are to vitalize your environment, you will want to have the fastest possible links to it, that is the nexus 5000.

The 6500 as almost any other switch captures the whole package makes a decision on what to do with it and then sends it out on the selected wire.

The nexus is a lot faster since it utilises a differet type of forwarding mekanism.

however the 6500 have many more options to do things than the nexus 5000 since the 6500 is "not just a switch".

but check the price of a nexus 5010 and then check the price of a 6500.

HTH

[mazheralam]

Well the nexus architecture consists of 7000, 5000 and 2000 series in terms of core, aggregation and FEX. So a full proof nexus architecture obviously increase the speed....

Can 7k and 5K combined????

[hobbe]

The 1000 is a virtual switch, i have never used it so I have no idea if its a good thing or not.

The 2000 connects to a 5000 and can not work alone.

The 5000 is a switching environment

The 7000 is routing capable and slower than the 5000.

Connection wise you can connect 5000 to 7000 in the same way that you can connect the 5000 to a 6500.

so that it is a nexus does no difference in the fact that it is "just" an ethernet switch.

But connecting a 5000 to a 7000 is not like the 2000 to the 5000.

or am I misunderstanding you here ?

if you need more speed then you would look at Infiniband.

HTH